{"id":44778,"date":"2026-08-14T17:15:30","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T12:15:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=44778"},"modified":"2026-08-14T17:15:30","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T12:15:30","slug":"olcs-new-opinion-on-executive-privilege-is-a-devious-tactic-to-cover-up-trump-admin-corruption","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=44778","title":{"rendered":"OLC\u2019s New Opinion on Executive Privilege Is a \u2018Devious Tactic\u2019 to Cover Up Trump Admin Corruption"},"content":{"rendered":"<script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n\r\n<br><div id=\"article-content\">\n            \n\n\n\n\n<p>The Justice Department\u2019s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) <a href=\"https:\/\/talkingpointsmemo.com\/news\/dems-sound-the-alarm-over-trump-dojs-attempt-to-block-oversight-he-knows-accountability-is-coming\" target=\"_blank\">put out a new opinion<\/a> earlier this week arguing that President Donald Trump can assert executive privilege over communications with advisors even if they do not work at the White House or within the government at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Experts tell TPM that the legal opinion is likely an effort from the Trump administration and his DOJ to preemptively interfere with congressional investigations that Democrats plan to launch if they manage to take control of one or both chambers after the 2026 midterms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n<!-- \/wp:post-content -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>\u201cThe legal opinion has more holes in it than a slice of Swiss cheese,\u201d Charles Tiefer, professor emeritus at the University of Baltimore School of Law, told TPM. \u201cIt\u2019s clearly a devious tactic to try to cover up the investigations into Trump\u2019s corruption before they even get started.\u201d<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>David Super, law professor at the Georgetown University Law School, agreed when asked if he sees the OLC opinion as a preemptive measure to hinder congressional investigations into the Trump administration.<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m sure that\u2019s exactly what they\u2019re trying to do here,\u201d Super said.<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>Tiefer, who was previously the acting general counsel and deputy general counsel to the U.S. House of Representatives, described the opinion as a \u201cclear attempt to create defensive barriers in advance of congressional investigations.\u201d<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>Experts told TPM that individuals that may be called to testify in front of Congress may end up trying to rely on this OLC memo to get out of testifying or giving over documents.<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph --><!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>They will say \u201cthey can\u2019t speak \u2018cause they have executive privilege,\u201d Tiefer told TPM. That is if they even show up at all, he added.<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>\u201cPresumably, the administration would try to help those people avoid testifying by sending a letter from President Trump saying, \u2018I\u2019m invoking executive privilege over what Joe the oil executive has been subpoenaed to testify about,\u2019\u201d Super said. This memo helps them lay the foundation ahead of time for Trump to be able to make those claims, Super added.<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>Claims of executive privilege usually concern communications between the president and his subordinates. In contrast, Tiefer said, \u201cthis opinion has nothing to do with the normal situation of a president getting advice from his subordinates about his duties.\u201d<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>The memo appears to have been written in response to a request from Trump\u2019s counsel to determine whether the president could assert executive privilege \u201cto protect communications between himself and private advisers.\u201d<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>Trump, of course, is known for seeking advice from allies outside the White House \u2014 including congressional lawmakers as well as personal friends and business acquaintances.<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph --><!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>\u201cExecutive privilege can apply to presidential communications with private advisers so long as the communications relate to official presidential decisionmaking, involve or reflect communications with the President or his direct advisers, and are confidential,\u201d the OLC opinion argues.<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>Further on, the opinion notes, \u201cRestricting executive privilege to purely intragovernmental communications would foreclose the President from relying on an array of important sources that he may find necessary to the effective discharge of his responsibilities of office. Such an outcome not only would impair the President\u2019s Article II functions, but ultimately would harm the public itself.\u201d<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>Tiefer told TPM that the 21-page OLC opinion is \u201cextremely long on rhetoric and equally extremely short on specific examples\u201d in setting precedent for the office\u2019s claims that executive privilege extends to presidential communications with private advisers.<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>Super said that the \u201cimportant parts of the OLC opinion rely overwhelmingly on their own prior opinions rather than cases.\u201d<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph --><!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>\u201cI will tell you that the strongest legal authority I know is what I said to you when we last spoke \u2014 but you\u2019re welcome to laugh at that,\u201d Super added. \u201cBecause of course we always agree with ourselves, or most of us mostly agree with ourselves. But that doesn\u2019t have to persuade anyone else. They are not a court. There is no law that gives them authority to make binding opinions \u2026 So citing themselves is not very helpful.\u201d<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>In contrast, there are examples of congressional investigations that have relied on evidence obtained from private individuals\u2019 communications with presidents. The Jan. 6 investigation is one of them, Tiefer told TPM.<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>\u201cIf you look at the ringleaders of the president\u2019s legal schemes in that case \u2026 those were Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman. They were private individuals. They had to give evidence \u2026 No successful executive privilege claim for them,\u201d Tiefer said.<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>Giuliani and Eastman did try to assert executive privilege over the communications the Jan. 6 Select Committee asked them to turn over as a part of their investigation. By the time they made their claims, however, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/politics\/white-house\/biden-rejects-trump-s-latest-claim-executive-privilege-over-jan-n1282341\" target=\"_blank\">Trump was no longer in office<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/john-eastman-jan-6-committee-159-documents\/\" target=\"_blank\">federal judges rejected<\/a> many of their executive privilege and attorney client privilege claims.<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>If Democrats take control of one or both of the chambers in the midterms and start their own congressional probes, Trump will still be in office. Experts agree that Trump will almost certainly try to claim executive privilege aggressively over the testimony of individuals who Democrats may subpoena.<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>\u201cThen the question will come: Is that privilege justified?\u201d Super said. \u201cThe OLC is trying to put down a marker saying, \u2018Yes, it is justified. It\u2019s very broad. It\u2019s very sweeping. It\u2019s very protective.\u2019 The congressional investigators in that case will surely try to make the opposite argument \u2026 And then a court, potentially, will have to decide whether it finds the OLC opinion persuasive. The court is absolutely under no obligation to defer to it, to give it special weight or anything of the kind.\u201d<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->          <\/div><script type=\"text\/javascript\">\n    window.fbAsyncInit = function() {\n      FB.init({\n        appId: \"101800829865996\",\n        xfbml: true,\n        version: ' v2.6'\n      });\n      window.fbAsyncInit.__didInit = true;\n    };\n    (function(d, s, id) {\n      var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];\n      if (d.getElementById(id)) {\n        return;\n      }\n      js = d.createElement(s);\n      js.id = id;\n      js.src = \"https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/sdk.js\";\n      fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);\n    }(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk'));\n  <\/script>\r\n<br><script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Justice Department\u2019s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) put out a new opinion earlier this week arguing that President Donald Trump can assert executive privilege over communications with advisors even if they do not work at the White House or within the government at all. Experts tell TPM that the legal opinion is likely an&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":44779,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/talkingpointsmemo.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/GettyImages-2289373166.jpg?w=1200","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44778","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-political-news"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44778","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=44778"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44778\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/44779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=44778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=44778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=44778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}